


What's Your Name?

by Adventures_in_Writing



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Tuckington - Freeform, tuckington time travel au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:57:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4844969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adventures_in_Writing/pseuds/Adventures_in_Writing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, during the testing for an equipment upgrade in a time long since past, Tucker gets pulled back to when Project Freelancer is still operating.</p>
<p>To a time where no one knows who he is.</p>
<p>To a time where Wash doesn't look at him the same way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What's Your Name?

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the [ Tuckington Time Travel AU](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/post/125269461991/au-wheremore-look-if-they-can-teleport-then) that [ papanorth ](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/) came up with and posted about on her tumblr. I thought it was a really neat idea, so I decided to try writing for it.

He didn’t know what the fuck was happening. One minute he was in the middle of a battle: bullets flying every-which-way, grenades being thrown over sandbags that enemies were hiding behind and swords being swish-swish-stabbed. The next, his head was spinning, and his stomach lurching similar to when teleporting via Future Cube only a hundred times worse.

Was this what dying felt like?

If so, it was shit and Tucker really didn’t want to experience it ever again. He groaned as he rolled onto his side in an attempt to get the spinning to stop. Moving seemed to make it worse and suddenly his helmet felt far too suffocating.

“Oh God,” he croaked, hurriedly bringing his hands to the seals on his helmet to shove it off. Little black spots danced before his eyes and Tucker scrambled on to his hands and knees, gulping down air in an effort to keep whatever little of his breakfast remained in his stomach.

He could see a rainbow armoured feet before him and something in the back of his mind tipped him off that something about this was wrong. Slowly, Tucker looked up at the soldiers surrounding him, their weapons not necessarily aimed at him, but certainly ready to fire if needed. There were too many colours: the gold wasn’t yellow enough for Sister, the purple too pinkish for Doc, the brown too dark for Lopez and there was a distinct lack of red. He did recognise the bright aqua armour to his left, but that wasn’t what his gaze settled on. Gunmetal grey armour with yellow accents stood towards the back of the group, staring at him.

“Wash?”

The group of colourful soldiers turned to the one in grey armour, no doubt questioning expressions on their faces. Slowly, he unclipped his helmet, his expression perplexed.

“Who the hell is this?”

Perhaps Tucker had been wrong but the rounded face, freckled nose and blonde hair, a little flatter than usual thanks to the helmet, were familiar. The piercing grey eyes that often looked at him with warmth, however, were scarily cold.

He’d seen this face a thousand times before. It was definitely Wash. Tucker didn’t doubt it for a second, but there was something wrong here. Suddenly his chest felt tight, and his vision went blurry as he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

“Something you aren’t telling us, Wash?”

“I’ve never met the guy before, Carolina.”

“Well, he certainly seemed to know you.”

*****

When Tucker came to, he didn’t recognise any of the surroundings: the ceiling wasn’t Blue base or Doctor Grey’s medical office, the walls weren’t those of his room. He sat up with a start, his hand immediately going for the alien sword that was always strapped to his thigh. The lighting in the room was dim despite the screens and lit-up panels on the floor. Tucker fumbled for a moment before realising his sword wasn’t there. He went to step off of the bench he had been laying on when a gloved hand reached for his shoulder. Immediately, Tucker flinched away, bringing an arm up to block the hand reaching for him.

“Get the fuck away from me!”

“Whoa, easy there. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

The voice wasn’t familiar to Tucker at all and he turned to the man with a glare.

“Says one of the dicks who took my sword.”

“We couldn’t leave you armed.”

“You are,” Tucker spat. “Really helps with the whole “I’m not trying to hurt you” thing.”

The door to the room slid open and Wash stepped inside. Instantly, Tucker’s anger disappeared. It wasn’t unnoticed by either of the freelancers.

“I’ll take it from here, York.”

Wordlessly, Tucker watched as York stood from the white chair beside the bed and passed Wash. He clapped a hand on his shoulder briefly.

“You sure?” he whispered. It wasn’t meant for Tucker to hear, but in the dead silence of the room, you’d be able to hear a pin drop. Wash nodded, looking anywhere but at the stranger in the medical bay who stared at him as though the world had ended.

“York?” Tucker asked once the other soldier left the room. “As in Agent York? From Project Freelancer? I thought he was dead.”

Tucker’s mind was reeling. How was this even possible.There was nothing left of Project Freelancer because he and everyone else had taken down the Director and destroyed it all.York, along with most of the other states from the Project had died years ago. Wash, Carolina and Epsilon had told him that.

“How…do you know about Freelancer?” Wash asked, taking York’s seat beside the bed.

Tucker looked to Washington, his gaze steady. “You told me. A long time ago.”

“But…I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

Wash sounded so certain that Tucker’s heart skipped a beat and his stomach tied itself in knots. He tried to laugh it off as some joke, but the laugh was half-hearted and his smile wasn’t as bright as usual.

“It’s me, Wash.”

“I don’t know who you are. I’ve never seen your face, I don’t know your name. I don’t know where you come from or why you’re here or how you even know me.”

Silently, Tucker looked at Wash long and hard, waiting for the recognition to hit him. Maybe he’d suffered a severe head wound in their battle and had amnesia? Tentatively, Tucker reached out a hand to him. When Washington didn’t shift away, Tucker placed a hand on his cheek. Wash’s face seemed younger: it felt rounder and more full in the cheeks beneath Tucker’s hand. There were no tired circles under his eyes and the creases on his forehead and at the corner of his eyes were not there. Tucker brushed a thumb over the scar that was across Wash’s eyebrow to find that there was no scar at all and that the skin was smooth.

“What are you doing?” Wash asked, leaning slightly away.

Tucker’s eyes searched Wash’s face for a glimpse of recognition, for something that clicked between them.

Tucker swallowed past the lump in his throat and took a breath to try and stop his hand from shaking as he took it away from Wash’s face. He was certain that the freelancer noticed the tremble but chose to say nothing about it.

“You’re telling the truth, aren’t you? You really don’t know who I am.”

“No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Tucker sat on the bed again, trying to remain composed. “I’m starting to feel tired again…would you mind if I took a nap?”

“We can talk later,” Wash stood and made his way back to the door.

Tucker lay down, curling up into a little ball, his arms wrapped around him, trying his damnedest to not breakdown whilst someone was still in the room. Despite his efforts, he trembled and he could feel his throat tighten as his eyes watered.

Before pressing the button to open it, Washington looked back at Tucker. “Hey…”

Don’t say it. For the love of all things good in the world, do not say it.

“What’s your name?” Wash asked.

Tucker took a breath and closed his eyes, tears starting to fall. “It’s…It’s Tucker.”

Wash said nothing further as the door slid open and then closed behind him.

He didn’t want to. He desperately didn’t want to, but as he lay there curled up on the hard mattress, he could hear Wash’s question on repeat in his mind.

_What’s your name?_

Tucker wished he hadn’t asked.


	2. A Great First Impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The later part of this chapter was inspired by [ an ask ](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/post/130440655826/in-your-time-travel-au-do-you-have-any-ideas-for) that [ papanorth ](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/) received on her Tumblr about the timetravel AU. I keep an eye on the asks that float around in the tag and try to work some of them into the story.
> 
> I promise I'm not a creepy stalker!

* * *

Wash leaned against the door to the medical bay and sighed, a sense of unease settling into his chest.  
  
The man—Tucker—was so certain that they knew each other. It was unsettling, having this complete stranger look at him and reach out to him like that: like they’d known each other for years and had been through a part of their lives together.  
  
Carolina was waiting for him further down the hall, her arms crossed over her chest as she stood there. Her stance was straight and rigid. Wash knew right away that she wasn’t here just for a casual conversation about the teal soldier that had appeared out of nowhere.  
  
“What did you find out? York said he was irritable.”  
  
“You would be too waking up somewhere unfamiliar,” Washington countered.  
  
“I suppose we can’t blame him. I’d be annoyed too, waking up next to York,” Carolina added, trying to diffuse the tension.  
  
Wash welcomed the change in tone. “What do you think? Reckon he’d have used the ‘sunshine’ line?”  
  
An overly dramatic sigh interrupted Carolina’s response. “Sadly I didn’t get a chance to. In better circumstances I reckon it might have gone well. Come on, we’re waiting on you two before discussing just what the hell happened.”  
  
Carolina and Wash joined York and silently made their way to the briefing room. As they neared the room, Wash stopped.  
  
“He said his name is Tucker.”  
  
Carolina thought about it for a moment and shook her head. “Never heard of him.”

  
  
*****

  
The freelancers stood around the table in the centre of the briefing room, the table headed by the Counselor and the Director. The screen that usually displayed the leaderboard was showing a number charts and graphs that, without explanation, were meaningless.  
  
Gamma stood at Wyoming’s shoulder, adjusting the information displayed on the screen. At the table, holograms and data taken from the earlier experiment with Wyoming’s equipment were displayed. As Wash, Carolina and York entered the room, Wyoming was explaining the basis of the experiment.  
  
“We were working on an experiment with my temporal distortion enhancement. Working on the theory that multiple universes exist, we were attempting to see if it might be possible to go between universes.”  
  
“Sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie,” Wash said, coming to stand at the table. “Is that even possible?”  
  
Carolina shrugged. “Sigma seems to think with experimentation, it could be achievable.”  
  
“And it is,” Gamma interjected. “Although it didn’t end as predicted”  
  
Sigma appeared and looked to the Director. “However, it _is_ a step in the right direction.”  
  
The Director stood, as always, straight with his hands behind his back. It was impossible to know what he was thinking and the freelancers waited to hear him comment. It wasn’t often that he would allow two AI to interact. “Although these experiments will not be a priority, we will continue to work on this and see where the developments lead us. In the mean time, Agent Carolina, I will entrust the task of questioning the individual that appeared to you. He may be useful to us. Dismissed.”

  
  
*****

  
  
Tucker couldn’t wrap his head around what had happened: it didn’t make any sense. It was possible that he’d been caught in a future cube and zapped to who knew where. The same thing had happened to Doc, right? Tucker found he now had a keen sense of understanding what Doc must’ve gone through. He’d have to remember to apologise or something if he ever managed to get back.  
  
It had taken Tucker a while to fall back to sleep, and even then it wasn’t restful. He couldn’t get comfortable and his mind was running through a million possibilities. When he finally awoke a second time, he wasn’t sure if he’d been dreaming or if he’d been thinking of the team back at Chorus. Were they okay? Had they won the battle? Was he going to be okay?  
  
Tucker knew that he needed answers and the only way to get them would be to confront Wash and the others. Grabbing his helmet and tucking it into the crook of his arm, Tucker went to leave the medical bay. He paused briefly at the door. He’d been too focused on Washington’s armour at the time to pay it too much mind, but now that he was in the mindset of getting some answers, he could clearly recall seeing turquoise amour and it could only mean one thing.  
  
Tucker’s hand was hovering over the release button when the door ‘swooshed’ open suddenly.  
  
“Tucker,” she replied, her tone not at all warm like he was used to. He recognised it well enough to know that he was dealing with the Scary Freelancer Lady. Great.    
  
“Carolina,” Tucker managed to say without stumbling over the word. He noticed her surprise at the name.  
  
“How do you know my name?”  
  
Suddenly, it hit him like a ship crashing into Chorus. He remembered something similar happening at Blood Gulch one time he went through the teleporters, though he’d only been a few minutes behind. This was something else.  
  
“Oh my god.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Somehow I’ve been sent back in time.”  
  
Carolina didn’t look too impressed with Tucker’s realisation. “You managed to come up with that all your own?”  
  
“Well, I’m not wrong, am I?” Tucker asked, sounding more confident than he actually felt.  
  
She held something out to Tucker. It was a small, grey bar with a spike in the middle. It was well worn and Tucker immediately snatched it back.  
  
“York said this was the first thing you asked for.”  
  
He clipped the energy sword to his armour, giving a pat to reassure himself that it was there. It was funny how not having it at his side felt strange.  
  
“It’s no fair when you guys have guns.”  
  
“I guess. We’ve got a few questions we’d like to ask you.”  
  
Tucker didn’t like the tone of voice Carolina was using. It was difficult to tell when she was being serious when they were friends. He didn’t want to know what this Carolina was like.  
  
“You’re not gonna beat it out of me, are you?”  
  
“Are you going to make us?”  
  
“...no?”  
  
“Good.”

  
  
*****

  
Tucker wasn’t too sure what to expect. He’d seen Carolina’s questioning methods first hand before, and whilst he definitely wasn’t planning on causing any problems for himself, he was still apprehensive.  
  
Being tied up was only fun in certain situations and this definitely wouldn’t fall into the category of a good time.  
  
He tried to remain calm and at ease, but it was difficult to do when you didn’t really know the person beside you or the people you were being led to. He sighed to himself and wished that Wash was here, or even Church. Hell, anyone would do.  
  
“We’re just going to be asking you a few questions about who you are and where you’ve come from. You don’t have to worry.”  
  
The door opened and Tucker stepped inside the room. Immediately he took in the seven freelancers standing around the table and the little blue holographic man standing at the table. He lowered his stance and immediately focussed on the familiar white armour and rounded helmet that was more visor than anything else and suddenly there was a flurry of activity, several things happening at once.  
  
“Fuck!” Tucker exclaimed, grabbing the sword from the clip at his thigh and activating it. He backed up against Carolina, forcing her towards the door. He knew he couldn’t take on any of the freelancers if they actually tried to take him out but he wasn’t about to hand them over to the Meta. No way.  
  
Everyone in the room, except for The Meta, and a soldier dressed in dark blue were aiming something at him, waiting to see what his next move would be. They watched Tucker like hawks spotting their prey.    
  
“It’s actually a sword?” Wash asked. “I thought you were joking!”  
  
“We couldn’t get it to work,” York explained.  
  
“What the fuck is the Meta doing here?” Tucker shouted. “Wash! Get away from him!”  
  
Wash looked towards Maine, lowering his pistol. “He means you, right?”  
  
“Calm down,” Carolina said from behind Tucker, reaching around to place a hand on Tucker’s arm. “We don’t know what this ‘Meta’ is.”  
  
Tucker nodded towards the white-armoured soldier. “That guy. He’s bad news.”  
  
“I think you’re a little confused. Maybe we should all lower our weapons and talk about this? Maybe introduce ourselves?”  
  
Tucker hesitated. “You keep that guy away from me.”  
  
“You gotta show me how that thing works,” Wash said earnestly.  
  
Tucker tilted his head, looking at Wash’s expression, wide-eyed and full of wonder.  
  
“Yeah, sure...” he replied distractedly.  
  
Tucker never knew that Wash could look like that.  
  
“Well?” Carolina asked, looking to the freelancers in the room. Slowly they lowered their weapons, making a show of putting them away. Carolina nodded and pushed down a little on Tucker’s arm, indicating that he too should lower his weapon.  
  
Although tensions were still running high, Tucker deactivated the sword and clipped it to his leg once more.  
  
“I guess I made a great first impression, huh?”


	3. Introductions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big group introductions are always hard to make interesting...

* * *

Tucker warily looked at the group of freelancers standing before him, trying to place the armour colours to the faces that he’d painted in his mind of the few tales that Wash—his Wash—had regaled of his days back in Project Freelancer. Tucker knew the Meta and Wyoming from their previous encounters and whilst CT looked familiar, there was something off about him in the way that he carried himself. He seemed smaller than what Tucker could remember.

After the initial shock of seeing the Meta again, it had taken almost everything in him to not jump the table and knock Wyoming to the ground. Tucker would never truly be able to forgive or forget that he had tried to kill Junior. He shifted anxiously from foot to foot, desperately wanting to be out of the meeting room and as far away from the freelancers as possible.

“All right, then,” Carolina suggested after a few tense moments. “Your name is Tucker, right?”

“That’s right. A captain of the…New Republic Army, I guess?”

“You’re a captain?”

“Hell yeah I am. Had no choice, really,” he didn’t go into details about how practically his entire squad died on his first real mission, or how he’d all but abandoned his post because he and the others were the worst possible captains ever and needed to go on a rescue mission for his friends. For Wash.

“We have no records of an Army of the New Republic,” Carolina stated.

“There’s a lot of shit that I know that you won’t have any records of.”

He looked towards Wyoming and the Meta. Tucker realised that he knew details of things that hadn’t happened yet. Maybe he could change the future? Maybe he could persuade Wyoming to not go after his kid. Maybe he could tell Maine not to go batshit crazy and kill everything? Or would telling them all this stuff just set them all on the same course of action? Would it simply plant the idea in their heads and everything will just end up the same? Didn’t all the Hollywood movies say not to fuck around with time lines?

There were too many possibilities and the questions were making Tucker’s head hurt. He needed time to sort all this out.

“But maybe you shouldn’t ask me too much stuff about the future,” Tucker added. “Cos, you know, spoilers, and stuff. It might ruin the space time continuum or something.”

Carolina didn’t seem impressed but didn’t argue the point.

Tucker told himself that he’d probably get cornered by her later.

“He does have a point,” Wash said when it seemed the tension in the room was growing. “Haven’t you seen any time travel movies? Tucker could set off a whole chain of events or totally change the course of the future by revealing too much.”

York laughed. “Man, you watch way too much TV.”

“Gamma, would you like to explain it to the young chap?” Wyoming asked.

“No!” Tucker shouted. The entire room stared at him in surprise and he suddenly felt very self-conscious.  “Uh…no, just…not Gamma. It’s fine, I don’t think we need an explanation.”

York patted Washington’s shoulder. “We’ll explain when you’re older.”

Washington shrugged away from York with what was unmistakably a pout. An honest to goodness pout and Tucker found himself unable to look away.

His Wash was never this expressive. It was unnerving and strange and Tucker wasn’t sure how to handle it. He missed whatever it was that Carolina had started to say, too busy looking at the wordless exchange between Wash and York.

“I already know you,” Tucker said once he’d tuned back in. “You’re Agent Carolina. The best Freelancer there was. I guess I should be saying ‘is’, huh? You can be scary as fuck, but only slightly less scarier than Tex.”

“Tex?”

“Another badass freelancer. Speaking of, where’s she at?”

“There is no Agent Texas. That name is reserved,” Carolina explained.

“Oh…” Tucker’s brow furrowed for a moment. He had noticed that whenever Tex was mentioned, the Carolina he knew would bust a fuse, but he figured that just came down to rivalry. He had always assumed Tex was in the same squad as all the other freelancers but perhaps he had been wrong. “Whatever.”

“This is Agent Maine,” Carolina said, gesturing to the white-clad soldier. He nodded at Tucker and Tucker found himself returning the gesture.

“So not the Meta?” Tucker asked. He knew that the Meta and Washington had some kind of connection, but after they’d killed the Meta, Tucker couldn’t bring himself to ask Wash for the specifics. He was beginning to wish he had.

Carolina shook her head. “We don’t know what that is.”

Shit. He hoped he hadn’t just set the ball rolling on that issue. “You can forget I ever even said anything about it. The Meta? What the hell is that?”

The freelancers cast worried glances in Tucker’s direction and he barrelled on.

“That’s Agent Wyoming,” he pointed to the other white armoured freelancer. “Dude, in my time, you’re a total asshole. Don’t be that guy. Stay the fuck away from my kid and you’re good.”

Tucker turned to CT to continue before anyone could make a comment. “You’re CT. I guess that’s short for Connecticut. You’re also a dick in my time. Dude, what is it with you freelancers and being total assholes?”

“I don’t think we make a habit of it, but I guess it’s part of the job,” CT shrugged.

“Wait, you’re a chick?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“…dude, that’s fucked up.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Tucker looked to the freelancer that had slammed her hands on the table. Her purple armour wasn’t familiar and he couldn’t recall a name. She looked pretty and if she wasn’t glaring daggers at him with the scariest goddamn scowl on her face, he’d have probably said the first pickup line he could think of. “Whoa, chill out for a second there. When I come from, CT is a guy.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, it’s all fucked up. I mean, fucked up as in different to what I know it as. It’s totally cool if you wanna become a dude later. No judgements here.”

There was a pause for a moment whilst Tucker tried to place what it was that wasn’t right here. The stories didn’t match up. Not that he had a lot to go from in the first place though.

“Well,” Carolina continued on in Tucker’s stead, “They’re the Dakota twins: North and South.”

“Hey there,” North nodded.

“You met York earlier in the infirmary, the one in dark blue is Florida. We don’t work with him too often. He’s usually with Wyoming but you’ll see him around the place on the Mother of Invention. Lastly we have–”

“Washington,” Tucker said, the name sounding strange as it rolled off his tongue. When was the last time he called Wash by his full name? Tucker couldn’t remember. “I know Wash but…”

Tucker trailed off and the silence dragged. It was obvious that he was having trouble putting it into words. None of the other freelancers knew how to prompt him to continue. It was obvious that this wasn’t something easy for Tucker to say or confront and so they awkwardly stood around the table waiting.

“But?” Wash asked when the silence became unbearable.

The only way to describe Tucker’s expression was pained. He only looked to Washington briefly before averting his gaze. Tucker couldn’t bring himself to properly look at this man who shared the same face as the Wash that he knew so well.

“You’re not the Wash I know. You’re not _my_ Wash.”

If anyone thought there were any implications in Tucker’s sentence, they didn’t speak up about it.


	4. What You Think Is Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm surprised that I managed to smash out another chapter before I go away for a week tomorrow. Enjoy!  
> (I am hoping to inject some happiness into this at some point...)

It was difficult to adjust to life on the Mother of Invention. His team—his _family_ —were a million miles and an entire universe away. Despite his gripes about Caboose and his naive, silly nature, despite the grumbling he gave to Wash when asked to drop and give him fifty, Tucker missed them. He missed them all. He missed Donut’s chirpy innuendo’s, Sarge’s stupid plans to take out the Blues and Grif and Simmons’ lover’s quarrels. He missed Carolina and the teasing way she’d sometimes speak to them, fondness evident in her voice and he missed Church’s assholeish nature.

Although Carolina and Washington were here, they weren’t the ones he knew. Carolina wasn’t the same woman as the one who’d awkwardly tried to interact with him in the only way she figured he knew how. Washington hadn’t trained him every day for months, instilling in him a sense of duty that he didn’t know he could posses.

He wasn’t the Wash that Tucker had fallen in love with and it was really fucking lonely.

Tucker sighed and looked around the room he’d been given. He’d lost count of the number of times his gaze had wandered over the few furnishings when he’d been told this was where he was sleeping a number of days ago. Apparently it had belonged to someone named Georgia, but Tucker couldn’t recall Wash ever mentioning the name. He looked to the dull metallic walls, the lone desk and chair in the corner with a single lamp sitting on it. The desk and chair were also metal, their dull grey blending in easily with the walls and floors. The white sheets of his bed were a stark contrast to all the grey in the room. He missed the splashes of Blue that they’d decorate their space with.

Perhaps that’s why the freelancers were a rainbow of colour? It certainly wasn’t for stealth reasons.

He stretched out on the bed, finding that the mattresses were just as bad here as they were back in Blood Gulch and Chorus. Tucker looked up at the ceiling, resting his hands behind his head in an attempt to make the lumpy pillow slightly more comfortable. Much like the rest of the ship, dim lighting panels were placed intermittently along the walls and ceiling, casting a dull glow over everything. He squinted, wondering how anyone could see anything properly in such low light without their helmets on.

A knock at his door roused him from his thoughts and he closed his eyes for a moment before answering, making sure his voice sounded better than he felt.

“Yo.”

The door slid open and he found South Dakota standing there.

“Carolina wants to make sure you’re alive,” she said, clearly unimpressed that she’d been asked to run the errand.

Tucker couldn’t really blame her.

“Boss making you be her little messenger today? Lame.”

South smirked. “You know it.”

“Well,” Tucker waved at her. “At least you’re hot. As you can see, I’m still alive.”

She glanced around the room, noting that everything was still in its original place despite Tucker having been on the ship for two days already. Tucker met her gaze and silently challenged her to say something about it.

“Like what you see?” he asked, plastering his usual flirtatious grin onto his face. It wasn’t quite the same as usual, but he did feel a shred like his old self again.

South Dakota’s gaze narrowed ever so slightly before she huffed.

”You’ll need to try that on someone else.”

“Figures,” Tucker said, placing his hand back behind his head. “You’re a boobs girl, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“I noticed a couple of nice sets on board,” Tucker added conversationally.

The grin that South gave to him told him that she knew it.

“Right, well, my job here is done.”

Tucker lifted a hand to give her a two fingered salute before she closed the door, returning the room to the almost-silence. It was never completely quiet on board: you could always hear the dull thrumming of the engines unless they were drifting in space. Tucker enjoyed those moments when the ship fell into absolute silence. In the quiet of his room, he’d slipped on his helmet and replayed the few videos he had of Blue team, allowing Caboose’s loud, cheerful voice to lift his spirits.

Somehow he’d been lulled to a state of almost-sleep; the endless chatter of voices he knew well providing a comfort to him that he never thought he’d ever need. The video ended and an audio clip played. Tucker’s heard twisted in his chest and his blood ran cold.

_I swear to God, if you ask me to look at another rash, I’m gonna kill you._

Tucker froze. He couldn’t bring himself to turn the audio file off and the familiar sound of Wash’s voice, full of dry humour and exasperation, swept over him.

_No, it’s just… it feels like every choice I make is the worst._

_Oh holy shit, you’re being serious._

Tucker had forgotten he’d recorded this conversation in the hopes that Wash might have said something relevant and inspiring that he could maybe listen to on days when he doubted himself.

_Well… you don’t. There’s never really a right or wrong answer. You just have to stick with what you think is best._

Tucker forced himself to take a breath. Then another and another. What on Earth would be ‘best’ in this situation? He was alone and stranded in a time and place that he shouldn’t even be in. All he had were pieces of information, some more detailed than others, and an ache in his chest that refused to go away and threatened to swallow him whole. ‘Best’ in this situation was staying in his room, avoiding passing on anything that would fuck up the time line and hurt all these people that Wash knew.

That isn’t what Wash would do though and deep down inside, Tucker knew that he couldn’t just stay locked up in the grey-walled room forever either.

_Tucker, I know you’re frustrated but you have to realize that making mistakes is just part of the deal. Even with everything you’ve screwed up, look at how far you made it. You’re not the same person you were back at Blood Gulch._

If he could prevent even just one thing that he knew about Project Freelancer from happening, maybe that would be best. Maybe the best thing in this situation is helping change how things could be. Perhaps best would be being happy knowing that he’d helped this Washington, at least a little.

Or maybe it would make his heart feel worse. The fuck if Tucker knew.

 

South Dakota kept stopping by his room every so often. He’d noted that the freelancers would routinely check in on him as he hadn’t left his room since being shown to it. Tucker couldn’t figure out any real pattern to the times they stopped by but then again, he wasn’t really paying too much attention to the time that had passed. She would always knock twice and wait for his call to open the door and peer inside.

“You still on messenger duty?”

South shrugged.

“It’s my turn today.”

“Not gonna tell me that I should leave?”

“I figure you would appreciate me not hounding you.”

Tucker couldn’t help the tiny huff of laughter that bubbled from him.

“Thanks.”

She disappeared from sight, leaving him to his own thoughts.

There was a long while between visits, and Tucker could only assume that meant it was night time. It was difficult to know when he stayed in his room the whole time where the lights were always set to low. He had left the room once or twice, in the early, early hours of the morning to make his way to the showers. Tucker had contemplated leaving his room for another shower, but South’s visit and his earlier musings had made him change his mind.

As he lay there, blankly staring up at the ceiling, he heard Wash’s voice ghost through his mind.

_You’re not the same person you were back at Blood Gulch._

Tucker sighed heavily and rolled on to his side.

“Is it bad that I kinda wish I was?” he asked the room.


	5. Pancakes for Breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally something a little lighthearted...when compared to other chapters that is.

* * *

Although he wanted nothing more than to just stay in his room, Tucker had to venture out. After skipping meals for three days, hunger finally began to gnaw at his stomach and he didn’t think South would be into the whole breakfast in bed thing. She never pestered him about his decision to not leave the room but she (or any of the other freelancers) wouldn’t baby him either. If Tucker wanted food, he’d have to go and get it himself.  
  
It was early in the morning: the reduced staff numbers from the nightshift were still at their positions and the lights weren’t quite at daylight levels yet. Tucker made his way to the mess hall, helmet tucked into the crook of his arm. He didn’t really need it for breakfast, but most officers and freelancers either wore their helmets or stored them in their lockers until they were needed. Since Tucker didn’t have a locker yet, he carried his helmet around with him.  
  
Most of the people he passed in the halls ignored him. They were used to seeing various colours come and go and Tucker was pleased for the lack of acknowledgement. He was certain that word had made it through the ranks that there was a time traveller amongst them; he’d already had one person ask him if hoverboards were _still_ not a thing in the future. Tucker didn’t even know what the fuck a hoverboard was and the pilot had advised that he needed to watch an ancient Earth movie called “Back to the Future”.  
  
A smooth voice drew his attention moments after he set foot into the dim mess hall.  
  
“Sleeping Beauty graces me with his presence.”  
  
Tucker turned towards the voice, his gaze narrowed in mild suspicion, trying to decipher just what was meant. York grinned at him, holding up a cup of coffee in greeting. Judging from the smile on York’s face and the tone he’d used, Tucker decided to participate in the game that York had silently started.  
  
“You’re the only worthy one in the room,” Tucker smiled back.  
  
York laughed. “I’m the only one in here.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
York shook his head, pleased to see that Tucker was at least participating in flirtatious banter. South had said that would be the best way to get Tucker to talk, at least until he felt settled.  
  
“Would you like some coffee? I make the best brew on the ship.”  
  
Tucker made his way over to the table at which York sat.  
  
“Is that so?”  
  
York nodded. “Ask anyone and they’ll agree.”  
  
Tilting his head to the side, he peered at York for a moment. “Why bother asking anyone when I can find out for myself?”  
  
He reached out for York’s mug and snatched it up, taking a sip of the steaming liquid.  
  
“You know that’s like, indirectly kissing, right?” North said, entering the room.  
  
“That’s kinda the point,” both York and Tucker replied in unison.  
  
As Tucker moved to the machine to get his own cup of coffee, York leaned forward in his seat to look at Tucker.  
  
“Finally, someone who gets me!”  
  
Tucker glanced over his shoulder with a smile.  
  
“Dude, I knew what you were like the second I heard your voice and saw that smile.”

  
*****

  
It was the first conversation he’d had in days where someone wasn’t telling him to get out of his room or to eat something or meet the crew, with the exception of when South visited and even then those conversations were short lived.  
  
Although he didn’t feel like his usual self, sitting with York and North had helped him feel at least a little less out of place. They spoke easily with him, choosing to steer clear of topics that might cause tension. It was mostly small talk that they filled their time over breakfast with: asking if Tucker had been into space before, filling him in on certain procedures on the ship that he would more than likely need to know about or which foods he shouldn’t touch if they were available on any given day.  
  
He hadn’t been paying much attention to the other people that had wandered into the mess hall looking for breakfast but an indignant shout caught his attention. Tucker knew that pitch and tone perfectly and he looked over to the furthest table where Washington and Maine sat, a plate of pancakes held up high above Maine’s head.  
  
“Those are mine!” Washington all but screeched.  
  
Maine shook his head and said something that was only loud enough for anyone standing right by him to hear.  
  
Tucker looked on in shocked awe as the two continued to bicker over the stack.  
  
“I’ll fight you for them,” Washington said in a deadpan voice.  
  
“Pancakes?” Tucker asked himself, voice barely a whisper. He hadn’t ever known that Wash liked pancakes, let alone would offer to fight the biggest soldier ever for them.  
  
North chuckled. “We don’t get them often, but when we do Wash eats about five servings.”  
  
Wide-eyed, Tucker looked to the stack of plates on the table and counted six. The plate currently being waved above Maine’s head was number seven.  
  
“Where does he even put it all?”  
  
York shrugged. “I honestly don’t know how he’s still the smallest next to CT amongst us. Seriously, he eats like a horse.”  
  
The three watched the scene between Maine and Washington unfold, the bigger freelancer eventually relenting when Washington threatened to eat all the salad the next time it was available.  
  
Maine had dropped the plate of pancakes onto the table as though they’d caught fire.  
  
As Washington poured an insane amount of the maple-flavoured syrup over the now-cold pancakes, Tucker shook his head to himself.  
  
“Pancakes.”  
  
York took a long sip of his coffee before setting the cup down. He wouldn’t lie to himself. He was exceptionally curious about Tucker and where he’d come from, but there was something else that he’d noticed and was more curious about.  
  
“You know Wash, right? In the future?” York asked.  
  
It was easy to see the way Tucker’s body tensed at the question.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Why are you so surprised about the pancakes?”  
  
Both North and York noticed the way Tucker’s eyes narrowed, the way his head tilted down ever so slightly and how his gaze flickered to Washington briefly before returning to the scuffed greyish-yellow surface of the table.  
  
“This Washington is different.”  
  
“Why? Shouldn’t they be the same? What happened?”  
  
Tucker stood from the table and looked squarely at York, trying his best not to get angry at the young man.  
  
“Project Freelancer,” was all Tucker said, his voice low with anger as he stepped away from the table and left the mess hall.  
  
  



	6. Round One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I mentioned it last chapter, but as always, if you like the AU you can go thank [ papanorth ](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/) for coming up with it in the first place and allowing us to play with it :)
> 
> I wish I was better at writing action things. I'm not 100% sure if this is as seamless as I'd have liked. I'll have to try harder next chapter.

* * *

Anger simmered beneath the surface as Tucker made his way down the hall despite how his mind was swearing incessantly at him for being so fucking _stupid._  
  
What was he even thinking, saying something like that? Hadn’t he told himself to not spoil anything yet? He didn’t know enough about Project Freelancer to start blabbering things to anyone on this ship and yet that instant of seeing Washington so carefree and seemingly untroubled had pushed him over the edge. Although he hadn’t spoiled too much yet, the way he’d said those words a few minutes ago implied so much that the Freelancer’s he’d been speaking to would have to be stupid to ignore it.  
  
Tucker had always known the shit that Freelancer had pulled was all kinds of wrong, that Church and Carolina were right in trying to put an end to Project Freelancer and the experiments but letting his emotions get the better of him wasn’t the right way to go about it. Especially not when he was right in the middle of things. One wrong step and he could be very easily taken care of.  
  
A hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks as they pulled back, making Tucker turn around.  
  
“You can’t just say something like that and then leave,” North said, removing his hand from Tucker’s shoulder.  
  
“Let’s have a chat,” York added. Although his voice was casual, his stance suggested that there was no option to say no.  
  
Tucker sighed, “Lead the way.”

  
*****

The problem with spaceships is that it can be difficult to find somewhere to talk that was private. People were everywhere on the ship, either killing time or performing their duties. York eventually decided on just heading back to his quarters because it was the only place he could think of where they could speak alone without anyone overhearing.  
  
“Okay,” York began once the door slid shut. “Start talking.”  
  
“I’ve told you before I can’t say anything.”  
  
“When you say that the Project is the cause of whatever happens to Wash in the future, we have a right to know.”  
  
Tucker grumbled in frustration, “I don’t know enough. What if I say something which starts the ball rolling? What if I say something that isn’t right and I fuck things up even more?”  
  
“What if telling us can help stop it?”  
  
“I only know little bits. Wash didn’t really like talking about Project Freelancer too much. Most of what I know I learned from Carolina and Church. I don’t know when the things I know happen. I might be too late, I might be too soon.”  
  
“So what exactly do you know that you _can_ tell us?” North asked. “Even something small could help.”  
  
Tucker looked away, wondering if he should say something. Maybe having someone know a little bit more about what happens in the Project would help?  
  
“Things...don’t go so great. Not just for Washington. For all of you. I’m not exactly sure of the exact details or how it happens but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the AI’s. I think it all starts from there.”  
  
“The AI have something to do with it?”  
  
“How much do you guys know about Epsilon?”  
  
“Epsilon?” North asked. “There isn’t an AI called Epsilon.”  
  
Tucker furrowed his brow in thought. How far back had he gone? Goddamn it he wished he knew more. He wished that Wash had been able to tell him a little bit more about his time in Project Freelancer. He wished he knew about what the Reds and Caboose had gone through in that year he was in the desert, when they were being tracked by Wash and the Meta. If he knew, for certain, what it was that created the Meta, he could try to prevent it. He kept his thoughts about Maine to himself for now. From what he had seen, Maine was totally different to the Meta, though they did share the same armour.  
  
“For Washington, Epsilon is where things go wrong, but, I don’t know if things start happening before then. I need to know more.”  
  
“So there’s nothing we can do for now?” North asked for clarification.  
  
Tucker shook his head. “If Epsilon isn’t around yet, then no, I don’t think there is.”

*****

Although he spent the vast majority of his time in his room, he ventured out more now. It was usually for meals and showers, but occasionally York and sometimes CT would ask Tucker out to the training rooms, either to watch them practice or to give him a few pointers. In the space of a week he’d learned three new ways to swish-swish-stab his sword and how to pick a simple lock.  
  
Tucker liked to think that Wash would have been proud of the progress he’d made in such a short amount of time.  
  
Neither York or North had any new information for him. He was kept in the dark about most of the happenings in the Project - a directive that had come from the Director himself despite the protests of Carolina and the others. Having someone who had knowledge of the future could help tell them if they were making the right decisions. They had heard that Washington had been called into a meeting with Internals, but as of yet North hadn’t come back with any information.  
  
Tucker was going over his newly acquired lock-picking skills with York in the training room when Wyoming and Maine entered.  
  
“Hello, chaps,” Wyoming greeted.  
  
Tucker still had a hard time not wanting to use Wyoming for sword practice.  
  
“Hey, what’s up?” York asked.  
  
“We’re wondering if you’d like to join us in a little sparring match.”  
  
“Sparring?”  
  
“We’ve got a new Agent who has asked for a three on one fight. Care to give us some backup?”  
  
“Sounds like it might be fun,” York said with a smile.  
  
“Head on up to the observation deck, young grasshopper,” Wyoming gestured to Tucker. “You might learn a thing or two.”

*****

As soon as he saw the familiar black armour, Tucker knew.  
  
“Aww, hell yeah!” Tucker exclaimed.  
  
The door to the observation deck swooshed open and CT, South, North and Washington entered, eager to view the impromptu fight that was happening below.  
  
“Wanna take a bet on who’s gonna win?” South asked, taking a position beside Tucker to watch the action. Maine went flying as the black armoured soldier managed to get inside his guard and place a well-aimed strike with the pugil stick. “My money’s on her.”  
  
Tucker grinned. “You’ve picked a winner there.”  
  
As Maine hauled himself to his feet, Carolina entered the room.  
  
“What’s going on down there? There’s no training sessions on the schedule. Who the hell is that?” she asked as she drew closer to the window.  
  
“Some new guy,” Washington replied.  
  
“You don’t know its a guy,” South retorted. “ _Sh_ e is a girl.”  
  
Washington stumbled over his words as he tried to think of something to say to placate the seemingly irritated South.  
  
“Just shut up, Wash.”  
  
The conversation was only half-hearted. Everyone was too focussed on the fight below and wondering how one Freelancer was so easily holding their own against three. She made it look like she wasn’t even trying.  
  
“Who is that, anyway?” Carolina asked. She turned to Tucker. “Do you know them?”  
  
“Yeah, but I’m having way too much fun watching you guys not know.”  
  
The calm, synthesised voice of F.I.L.S.S came over the loudspeaker in the room. “Round One, over. Pugil stick training complete. Point awarded to Texas. Current score is Team One: Zero. Texas: One.”  
  
Carolina crossed her arms over her chest. Tucker couldn’t see her face because of the helmet, but if he were to guess, she’d be frowning.  
  
“I thought that name was reserved,” she said, mostly to herself.  
  
“She’s got some nice moves though,” Washington commented.  
  
“It could be luck,” Carolina replied.  
  
As the group of fighters below returned their pugil sticks to the collection of weapons off to the side and took up fighting stances in order to begin the next round, Tucker grinned and leaned against the railing. He’d always known that Tex was a badass and was highly skilled, but he’d never really had a chance to see her in action. After all, even Tex’s worst fighting would have looked amazing to the sim troopers. Here, he could see her in all of her glory. Hopefully without the bad influences of O’Malley.  
  
It was kinda scary but also impressive as hell. She had easily wiped the floor with the three men she was facing off against in the first round and Tucker found he was kind of excited to see how the following rounds would go.  
  
“York is so gonna regret agreeing to this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I haven't totally glossed over York's injury. That will come into the next chapter :)


	7. Lockdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like the AU you can go thank [ papanorth ](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/) for coming up with it in the first place and allowing us to play with it :) This fic wouldn't exist without her initial idea!

* * *

Although Tucker knew, quite well, that Tex was a total badass, nothing truly could have prepared him for just how awesome she was. It made Tucker wonder just how pitiful he and the rest of the Reds and Blues must have looked to her way back when in Blood Gulch or when they were attempting to take down Project Freelancer. She probably hadn’t even been trying against them. No wonder she ended up sticking around to help them out and had said that they’d just hold her back when things started getting serious. Right now, it was three against one and she hadn’t lost a single point. Not one. In fact, Tucker was pretty sure she hadn’t even been hit yet and she was facing off against two of the top six freelancers. To add further insult to the injury that their ego’s would be feeling, Tex made them look like new recruits, greener than Simmons’ face that one time Tucker had caught him making out with Grif in the Warthog.  
  
Down on the floor, York sighed as Maine and Wyoming made a dive for their opponent. She was just too good and there was no way in hell they were going to get the best of her if they kept working like they were.  
  
“Goddamn it. I can’t believe I actually volunteered for this crap...”  
  
She kicked their asses in hand to hand, though judging from the way the freelancers were swinging at her haphazardly without any kind of team coordination it was hardly any wonder. From Tucker’s view up top, it at least seemed like York was trying to get some kind of plan of attack happening but he barely could get a word in edgewise.  
  
F.I.L.S.S’s voice sounded throughout the room after the hand to hand combat round had been completed. “Resetting the floor for lockdown paint scenario.”  
  
Tucker watched as the training room rearranged itself: 30 square cement blocks were pushed up from the ground as the four freelancers stood back and made their way towards a bench that had pistols resting on it.  
  
“Lockdown paint?” Tucker asked.  
  
“It stings like a bitch,” South replied, not bothering to elaborate on what the paint was.  
  
“It’s a compound that turns your armour rock solid if it hits you,” North explained when it was clear his sister wasn’t going to be continuing.  
  
Tucker could hear the smile in Carolina’s voice as she turned to them all, “It’s not bad if you don’t let it hit you.”  
  
“Thanks,” Wash said dryly, “I’ll try to remember that.”  
  
He resisted the urge to say “In your face!” to the freelancers and to high-five Carolina. Chances are one of them would challenge him to a round and he’d lose in two seconds flat.  
  
“So the aim of this is to just not get shot?” Tucker asked.  
  
“Watch and see,” CT nodded to the floor as the freelancers took their positions behind the blocks.

  
*****

  
It looked brutal. As soon as the magenta coloured paint (which looked more like a building foam than a liquid) hit the armour, it immobilised that segment. Arms would freeze in position, legs wouldn’t bend, bodies would be twisted in such a way that they’d just keel over if lightly tapped with a finger. Tucker noted that Wyoming and Maine were always the first to be hit and he could’t figure out if it was because Tex was saving York for last or if he was actually decent at fighting.  
  
Tucker liked to think it was the second option. Tex wasn’t always a bitch.  
  
The group of fighters spent more time training with the lockdown paint than any of the other apparatus that were available and Tucker was just as slack-jawed as the rest of the freelancers were watching her win round after round after round.  
  
The ninth round started, but something about it didn’t seem right. Wyoming and Maine were loitering around the bench where the pistols were kept, standing close to one another, constantly looking over their shoulders.  
  
The round started and there was definitely something wrong.  
  
“Are they using live rounds?” Wash asked suddenly, leaning closer to the glass to get a better look. “Someone should get the Director.”  
  
Tucker looked at the floor, which was quickly becoming a mess of rubble as Wyoming and Maine seemingly were firing shots whenever they could in an attempt to win. It didn’t even look like they were taking the time to aim. With plenty of ammunition, they seemed to fire at anything that moved. Armed with nothing but the lockdown paint training gun, Tex squared off against Wyoming and Maine. From the look of it, York was trying to figure out what the hell was going on.  
  
“The Director?” Connecticut asked with a huff of laughter. “Who do you think gave them the ammo?”  
  
Tucker glanced sidelong at her as she watched the fight below. The comment caught his attention and he thought to himself that after this, he needed to try and get CT alone. From the sound of it she had some ideas that he might find useful.  
  
The group in the observation room each turned their attention back to the freelancers below, their body language tense as shot after shot was fired. Miraculously, no one had been injured as of yet. York had given up on the training exercise, choosing to try and talk some sense into his teammates. He was easily brushed off though as they continued to pursue victory. Just what were they trying to achieve, anyway? How was using live ammunition in a training exercise supposed to help? He’d repeatedly tried to warm Tex, but she wouldn’t hear of it, kicking or punching him out of the way.  
  
Tucker wasn’t sure if it was because she was still trying to fight them all or if she was trying to keep him out of the way of the bullets that were flying about.  
  
Yet again, York found himself in the crossfire, caught between Wyoming, Maine and Tex. Suddenly, he found himself sailing over Tex’s hip as bullet’s whizzed past. It took him a moment to get his bearings and realise what had happened. He was on the ground, struggling to get up from a judo throw. Wyoming had been almost glued to one of the concrete pillars, his armour covered in paint and his body slammed into the wall, as Maine struggled to get his hands free from the lockdown paint that covered them. It seemed as though Tex had managed to disarm her opponents and that she had won the round.  
  
As Tex approached York to return his training gun to him, Maine broke free from the paint, making a mad dash for the nearest concrete pillar.  
  
“What the fuck!?” Tucker exclaimed as the giant freelancer punched through the pillar like it was made of paper, slamming a huge chunk of concrete into York and sending him flying across the floor. The poor guy didn’t even see it coming.  
  
Wyoming, though still immobilised by the paint, toppled to the ground and Tex reacted quickly as Maine approached from behind. She turned and rolled over her shoulder, coming up out of the tumble with ease, firing the training gun at point blank range into Maine’s chest, shoulders and neck trying to immobilise him as quickly as possible.  
  
But it wasn’t fast enough.  
  
Maine pulled the pin on a grenade he’d been holding and threw it, as best he could, towards Tex. She easily side stepped to avoid it and turned to see that it had rolled to a stop by York who was still dazed and unbalanced from his earlier hit. York was in no shape to move out of the way. There was no time: taking aim with the training gun, Tex fired at York relentlessly, aiming for his helmet and upper body in the moments before the grenade exploded.  
  
The observation room erupted into a cacophony of shouts as the room shook from the explosion. Each of the freelancers who were observing cursing and swearing as the brightness made them flinch away from the glass window. Carolina managed to remain calm, ordering a medical team to the training room. Amongst it all, Tucker watched feeling somewhat removed from everything.  
  
He had thought that the freelancers were friends. He’d thought that they worked as a team. As the freelancers ran from the observation deck, Tucker watched Washington exit quickly behind North. If this is what training was like, who knew what it could be like out on the battlefield. No wonder Wash had issues trusting people.  
  
As CT went to leave the observation room, Tucker reached out, gripping her by the arm. She looked to the teal armoured glove resting against her brown armour before meeting Tucker’s gaze.  
  
“What?”  
  
Tucker glanced to the side to make sure there wasn’t anyone in listening range. By now they’d all made their way across the floor to where Tex was kneeling beside York but it wouldn’t hurt to check.  
  
“You say the Director had a hand in this?”  
  
The way she tilted her head at Tucker was familiar to him. People tended to do it all the time when they realised that Tucker wasn’t quite as stupid as he seemed. He knew that her silence as she regarded him was the moment she weighed the options of sharing whatever it was she knew with the stranger from the future. She leaned close, lowering her voice.  
  
“I’ll come by your room later on tonight.”  
  
“Bow chicka wow wow.”  
  
CT shook her head, a bemused smile hidden by her helmet on her lips. “We’ll talk then.”

*****

There was nothing he could do. There was nothing any of them could do but sit there and wait for York to finish up in surgery before being taken into the recovery rooms. Carolina and North had asked how soon York would be out, but the doctors had said they didn’t know how long the surgery would take. The surgeons needed to assess the extent of the damage to his eye and face as well as check for any further injuries caused by the sound of the explosion at such close range and the heat. Though his armour did protect him from the worst of it, York’s shattered visor and badly damaged helmet had concerned the medical team greatly. They’d quietly suggested to Carolina that they weren’t sure if they could save York’s sight in his left eye, where it seemed the worst of the damage to York’s armour was. Tucker had noted how her lips pressed tightly together at the information and how her expression had softened when she had passed it along to North.  
  
As the medical team took York, Maine, Wyoming and Tex away for examination, the remaining freelancers that had been watching the training session were all called into a meeting with the Director. Tucker had been told to leave the training room immediately and could feel the cold gaze of the Director following him out. Obviously they didn’t want him listening in on it.  
  
Tucker didn’t need to be a genius to know that they were being reprimanded about what had happened but, exactly why the observers had been singled out, he couldn’t say. As Tucker made his way back to his room, for he had no where else he could really wander off to, CT’s words played through his mind.  
  
_Who do you think gave them the ammo?_  
  
Tucker knew that fucked up things had happened throughout the Project. The Carolina and Wash that he knew were proof of that. Hell, even Epsilon, no, Church had been affected by it. There was something big going on here, something big that none of them had really properly picked up on.  
  
No one but Agent Connecticut, apparently.  
  
  
  
  
  
   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters should be less episode specific. I feel that the fight between Wyoming, York, Maine and Tex is a pivotal point in the series, so I didn't want to gloss over it in this fic. Things should start getting quite interesting from here on in! Thanks so much for sticking with me so far :)


	8. Shower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some of the heartbreaking Tuckington that this AU promises!
> 
> As always, thanks to [ papanorth ](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/) for coming up with the AU. 
> 
> Special mention to [ eviltoast ](http://eviltoast.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr for suggesting this scenario and an anon who requested Tucker have glowing Sangheli tattoos on him, which I assume was inspired by [ this awesome piece of art by ashleystlawrence.](http://ashleystlawrence.tumblr.com/post/128256540441/so-after-stumbling-on-war-wounds-i-thought-it)

* * *

In the wake of the training room accident, tensions were running high. Maine, Wyoming and Tex had been given the all clear from the medical team after they’d been examined for minor bruising and scrapes. Wyoming and Maine quickly exited the medical bay, offering a few murmured words of apology to the freelancers who were waiting for any sort of word on York’s condition. Tex walked by the group without so much as a glance.

Carolina remained as stone-faced as ever, though the furrow in her brow had softened after their apologies. North had shrugged them off, saying that accidents happened all the time, that it was part of the job. It didn’t ease his concern over his friend and teammate, though he appreciated their words all the same. Washington, on the other hand, scowled at the freelancers as they passed him. His arms were crossed over his chest and he refused to even look at Maine.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Wash said, a surprising amount of venom in his voice considering that Maine was his friend.

“Sorry,” Maine muttered.

Wash looked to Maine for a brief moment before returning his gaze to the closed door that York and the rest of the medical team were behind.

“We aren’t the ones you need to apologise to.”

*****

What’s a guy to do when the training rooms are off-limits and you’ve still got a few hours to kill before your hot date arrives?

Not that CT was Tucker’s hot date or anything, but you get the gist of it.

After the crazy events of the early afternoon, Tucker had returned to his quarters, not particularly keen on encountering any of the freelancers. They were uptight most of the time, so interacting with them now, after York’s accident would be almost unbearable. He listened to his old Blue team audio logs a couple of times, suddenly feeling a wave of longing for the simpler days of just standing around in the canyon talking. Back then Tucker didn’t have any of that shit to deal with in the desert with the aliens, he didn’t have to worry about a six-foot perfect soldier coming after them just because Church was an AI, he didn’t have to worry about the war on Chorus and Locus and Felix or any of that bullshit with Charon and Malcolm Hargrove.

And now, after all of that, he had this crap with Project Freelancer to deal with and he wasn’t even supposed to be here.

With a heavy sigh, Tucker rubbed his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. He hoped that his talk with CT later would help straighten some facts out and help him figure out where to start with all this and how to piece the limited knowledge he had together. He sincerely hoped that CT had some information to give to him too, because what he currently did know was definitely not enough to know what to do. There was a niggling sensation that ate at him whenever he caught a glimpse of the AI. It bothered him endlessly, but whenever he thought of the AI’s on the ship and of Epsilon back on Chorus, he felt like there was something big, something important that he was missing.  
The frustrating thing was, Tucker was so very certain that he had the answer, that he knew exactly what it was he was missing, a puzzle amongst the bits and pieces of information he had. He just needed to figure out how to put the fragments of information together.

He grumbled to himself as he stood. God, he wished someone _smart_ was here. Simmons or Church or Wash could have figured this shit out in an instant.

“Fuck it,” he said to himself, “I’m gonna take a shower.”

*****

Washington had a long day. The days were long anyway, but today seemed particularly brutal. After his early morning training session, he’d been taken aside by a group of internals for questioning.

Washington had seemed rather calm through the interview at the time, but in reality his heart and mind had been racing. Why were internals talking to _him_? He’d been an exemplar soldier, always going to training sessions and upholding the rules and regulations. At first, he had thought that it might have been about that one night he’d spent in Maine’s room, fraternising with other officers wasn’t allowed but none of the other freelancers ever seemed to be pulled up on it, but that question had never popped up in the interview.

They had been asking about the Insurrection and transmissions being made from inside the ship going out. Wash didn’t have any information for them, but their questioning had sparked something in Washington. There was obviously something going on here behind closed doors.

The impromptu interview followed by the whole training room incident had his mind whirring and he needed a break from everything to gather his thoughts and calm down.

He had taken to idly wandering the halls when he passed by the locker room. After a moment’s deliberation, he headed inside, quickly stripping out of his armour down to his under suit.

A shower sounded damn good right about now. There was peace and solitude there and the hot water would help his muscles relax.

When he headed into the showers, he was surprised to find that one of the stalls was occupied. Everyone had their favourite shower times, though Washington supposed he had come in a fair bit earlier than usual. Normally he would have his showers later in the evening, unless he had been on a mission, but the same could be said for everyone. He was even more surprised when a voice echoed in the room, the melody bouncing from the ceiling and walls.

_Roses are red,_  
Violets are blue  
One day we’ll cruise  
Down Blood Gulch Avenue

Washington’s brow furrowed in confusion. Who the hell else sang in the shower?

_It’s red versus red_  
And blue versus blue  
 It’s I against I  and me against you  
  
It took him a moment to recognise the voice and he, somewhat awkwardly, called out.

_Violets are bl–_

“Tucker?”

Tucker’s voice abruptly cut off and Wash wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all.

“Sorry, dude,” Tucker replied after a moment. “I’ll shut up.”

Washington kind of wanted to say that Tucker’s voice wasn’t half bad, really, and it certainly beat listening to York singing old Earth pop-songs off key. Instead, he stepped into an empty stall and turned the water on without saying a word.

He didn’t know what to make of Tucker. From what he’d glimpsed of the man, he seemed like a decent individual, easily making friends with York, sometimes talking with North and, amazingly, could manage to hold a conversation with Carolina without crumbling or picking a fight. Washington had noticed though, that Tucker seemed to go out of his way to keep a comfortable distance away from him. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why and to be honest, Washington had been distancing himself too. There was just something that had been in Tucker’s eyes in that first moment they’d met that unsettled him. Something in the way that Tucker had taken his face in his hands that time in the medical bay that had chilled him to the core for some reason that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to properly comprehend.

*****

Back in Blood Gulch Tucker never had to worry about sharing the showers. With only a team of three, or four if you counted Tex, it was pretty easy to keep tabs on whom was where in the base. Things had been a little trickier on Chorus, so Tucker had grown used to sharing the showers, but the awkwardness of this whole situation with Washington in particular took it to a whole other level.

Tucker had finished with his shower ages ago, but in an effort to avoid awkward change room chatter, he had tried to wait for Washington to shut off the water and head out to get changed first. Wash had always been an advocate for having quick showers, saying that they needed to preserve their water as much as possible. Although Tucker liked longer showers, after being with Wash for so long, his habits had caught on.

Apparently though, back in Project Freelancer, Washington wasn’t as uptight about water preservation as he was in the future.

Eventually Tucker decided to just chance it and shut the water off, waiting a few seconds for the water to trickle from his body before grabbing his towel to dry off. Wrapping the towel around his waist, Tucker quickly exited the stalls, fully intending on dressing like lightning before Washington could finish up.

Unfortunately, Washington had turned off the taps at the same time.

“Fuckberries,” Tucker muttered to himself as he quickly towelled off and made his way out to the change room. Moments later, of course, Washington followed and the awkward silence that hung in the air around them was thicker than honey.

Tucker kept his eyes to himself. It was the unspoken rule of the locker room no matter where, or when, you were. There would be, absolutely, no wandering eyes until everyone was clothed. No matter how much he really wanted to allow his gaze to linger on Washington’s naked back, he refused to look. It would just be yet another reminder of how different Tucker’s Wash and this Washington were. He’d had enough heartbreak in those first few days to open the welts again.

“What…what are those?” Washington’s voice was quiet, almost like he’d been contemplating asking the question for a long time already.

Confused, Tucker turned, holding his shirt in his hands.

“What are what?” He told himself not to look at the bare expanse of Washington’s torso, to not allow his gaze to marvel at the surprisingly unmarred skin.

“Those marks on your back.”

“Oh,” Tucker brought a hand up to his shoulder, fingertips brushing over the edges of the elaborate markings that he’d inherited when Junior was born. He’d been so used to people knowing about them that he had completely forgotten they were there. The last time anyone had mentioned the markings were months and months ago back when he was first picked up by the New Republic.

“Um, how I got them is a long story. They’re alien markings that talk about a Great Prophecy, in a nut shell.”

There was a whole lot of other things that told of the Great Prophecy in great detail, about a bunch of other keys and weird alien temples, but Washington didn’t need to know the whole story.

“Can I look at them?”

Tucker took a breath trying to calm his heart and to settle the lurch in his stomach. “Sure.”

Washington slipped his shirt over his head and closed the locker door before walking over to Tucker. He peered closely at the markings, marvelling at how they seemed to glow in the dim light of the room.

“They glow?”

“Kind of,” Tucker replied, trying to keep his voice steady. He all but ached for Washington to run his fingers over the lines of the tattoos like he always did on the occasions they were together. Tucker longed for the gentle touch and the way the tension in his body all but melted away under Wash’s hands. With his face hidden from view, Tucker closed his eyes and could almost imagine it.

“That’s really cool.”

It was then that the illusion was broken. His Wash would have said something like “they look really interesting” or “I wonder what it says” and then Tucker would translate the Sangheli markings into English and the prophecy would sound way less impressive than how it looked. How can words ever be as bad-ass as a glowing alien tattoo birth mark?

“Thanks,” Tucker said, forcing a smile before slipping his T-shirt on.

The silence that fell between them was, somehow, even more awkward than it had been when they had their backs to one another and completely naked. Tucker was starting to assume that all silences between them would be awkward and thus their awkward silences were really awkward silences.  

“What do I think of them in the future?” Washington asked. His voice wavered ever so slightly, almost like he was afraid of what Tucker might say. Almost like he didn’t want to ask, but his curiosity had beaten his resolve to stay distant from Tucker.

Tucker wondered if he should answer. Was Washington hurting him like this on purpose? Was he intentionally trying to remind Tucker of what it was he’d lost? Tucker sighed and made his way to the door. He couldn’t bring himself to look back at Washington, for fear of seeing the disgust and confusion on his face.

“You think they’re beautiful.”


	9. Connecticut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter. I needed to slow down to rest my overworked wrists because I was doing so much typing. As such, my updates will be slower than what they have been previously. I'm doing quite well at the moment, but I don't want to undo all the work that easing up on the typing has done. 
> 
> Special shout-out to MsDee who sort of inspired me to bring forward the latter part of this chapter.

* * *

CT couldn’t arrive fast enough. After his encounter with Washington in the showers, Tucker needed _something_ to serve as a distraction. The scene kept playing over and over in his head and he picked apart all the places where he could have said something different or where he could have made a hasty escape without needing to endure the awkward encounter. Thinking back on it now wouldn’t change anything though, for the love of God, _why_ did he tell Washington that the Wash Tucker knew thought his Sangheli markings were _beautiful_? Not only did it sound sappy as fuck, it pretty much guaranteed to reveal the one thing he really wanted to keep from Washington: how much he means to Tucker.

He hoped that Washington was just as dense as his Wash because, goddamn, the amount of awkwardness this whole thing could create would be on the same level as overhearing Church explaining to Caboose where babies came from.

The knock at his door came sooner than expected and Tucker allowed CT in without a word.

“Hey, you made it,” Tucker said conversationally.

“What? No cheesy pickup line?” the smallest of the freelancers asked with a grin.

“There’s no point,” Tucker said with a shrug, “I don’t have the goods that you like.”

“Not going to try to change my mind?” CT asked, her tone was light and casual.

“Only jerks use that excuse and only jerks say ‘Oh, but when you see mine you’ll never go back!’. Nah, if you say you like the ladies, and only the ladies, then that’s cool. Maybe we can talk about hot chicks together sometime.”

“I guess its down to business then,” CT said, leaning against the desk. She didn’t want to be here too long. She had her own things to get back to, but if Tucker had anything useful, she wanted to hear it.

Tucker didn’t waste any time.

“So, you reckon the Director organised the whole ammo thing earlier?” Tucker

CT shrugged. “I wouldn’t say his name too often,” she warned. “You never know who might be listening in. There’s a lot of shady stuff going on around here. The leaderboard in general, the way they rank us, the way some of us are always screwing up yet others can never do anything wrong. Like I said, there’s something going on here and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed it. You know definitely seem to know that something’s wrong, and I think others might have picked up on it too.”

“The A.I,” Tucker murmured to himself mostly, but it was loud enough for CT to hear.

“The A.I,” she echoed. “I don’t have a lot of information on them yet. I’m digging though and what I’ve found out…”

“It’s not good,” Tucker finished.  “I don’t know much about them. In the future I’ve only met Gamma, Omega and Epsilon. My friend Church was an AI too, but I don’t know if he had, like, a code name or anything. I know the Meta had a bunch of AI, but I wasn’t there for a lot of that shit, so I don’t know the specifics. I think he was collecting them or something. Wash…Wash didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Epsilon?” CT asked.

“Yeah. He’s like…a memory of Church. It wasn’t explained very well to me,” Tucker added when CT gave him a look that said she didn’t believe the bullshit that was coming from his mouth. Damn, Tucker wished Caboose could have explained things better! “I don’t know when or how he gets it, but Epsilon is Wash’s A.I,” CT was silent and he continued. “You can’t let him have it.”

“Why?”

“Something happens. I don’t know, exactly. Wash…my Wash is different to this one. The Project… Epsilon breaks Washington, CT. Breaks him in a way that no one can completely fix. If you find out _anything_ about where these A.I come from, or even which A.I are going to be implanted next, you have to tell me.”

CT wasn’t wholly convinced. She didn’t know Tucker, she didn’t trust him as much as she trusted her comrades. Although that trust was quickly crumbling the more she learned about Project Freelancer and just how deep that rabbit hole went.

“Why should I trust you?” she asked, “You won’t tell us a damn thing.”

“You’re friends with Wash, right? And you want to make sure he comes out of whatever shitstorm is gonna happen here, right?”

CT nodded.

“Then you can trust me. Now that I have a chance, I am going to save him.”

*****

When the Reds and Blues had to continue on to face Hargrove without Carolina and Wash, he had complete faith that they would be able to handle themselves. The teams had proved time and time again that when it came down to it, they could do virtually anything. This time would be no exception. He hadn’t expected them to come out of it completely unscathed, that would be far too unbelievable, but he hadn’t expected someone to not come back.

The gradients of red stood in front of him and he instantly noticed the lack of blue. Caboose stood between Doc and Donut, Epsilon’s hologram floating at his shoulder.

“Where’s Tucker?” Wash asked. He looked to Sarge for a moment before looking at Epsilon.

No one spoke, their heads tilted down or to the side, trying to avoid eye contact with the yellow-trimmed soldier.

“Where’s Tucker?” he asked again, forcing the worry and fear out of his voice. He was the fearless, Agent Washington. He didn’t get emotional over things like lost personnel. Even if it was a close friend.

Even if it was a lover.

“Wash…” Epsilon began, sounding surprisingly gentle.

“We don’t know,” Grif said, deciding it would be best to just get it over with. He knew that if he were in Wash’s situation, he would want to be told as soon as possible without beating around the bush.

“You…don’t know.”

“He just vanished. The second he got into the new suit, before Church could jump over to it, he just…vanished.”

None of them could tell Wash what had happened, where Tucker had gone. Wash had asked if he’d been hit by any of that alien tech that made you disintegrate, or turn you into thousands of charred glowing orange bits that scattered on the wind. Grif had shook his head and said that the room had been sealed at that point, Tucker had, literally, vanished.

They had all taken the news of Tucker’s disappearance hard. Even the Reds were a little shaken, even though Tucker was a Blue it was almost like one of their own had suddenly vanished without a trace. At the end of the day, though, they all had a job to do. It sucked balls that Tucker was gone, but wasn’t that what Felix had said? Not everyone makes it back alive. It was just really shitty that it was one of their guys and not one of the space pirates instead.

Caboose had Epsilon to comfort him. Despite Caboose’s insistence that he didn’t like Tucker very much, he was still quite upset by what had happened. Wash had resigned himself to going over to Caboose and trying to talk about things — he easily recalled the last time he tried to leave Caboose to sort out complicated feelings like grief on his own — when Carolina clapped a hand to his shoulder.

“I’ll go and talk to him, Wash,” she said softly.

“But—”

“You need to look after yourself right now, Wash.”

As she made her way over to Caboose, Wash turned away and headed for a secluded part of the base, his mind strangely blank.

Tucker couldn’t be gone. He _couldn’t_. Wash had believed in him, in all of them. Tucker should have returned with the rest of them. He was supposed to be able to hear that obnoxious voice and that stupid catchphrase and see that blue armour that wasn’t really blue or green standing there alongside the shades of red.

Tucker had just been split up from the group, that was all. Wash would radio Tucker and listen to him complain about how those assholes totally ditched him and that they should fucking come and pick him up already. Wash opened up the communications channel he shared with Tucker. It was dead. There wasn’t even static. Just silence. Eery silence that chilled Wash to the core.

Tucker was properly gone. Possibly dead. He might not ever see Tucker again. His mind scrambled to remember the last time he saw Tucker. It was only briefly, in the midst of battle. They hadn’t even had a conversation. He and Carolina had sent Tucker along with the rest of the Reds and Blues to do the impossible. They had succeeded, excellently in fact, but it had cost them Tucker.

It had cost _Wash_ Tucker. Was this victory worth that price?

Carolina said he needed to look after himself. How was he supposed to do that when he was so close to breaking?


	10. Emotional stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delay on getting this chapter out! Life stuff got in the way and at the moment writing has been...quite the challenge. So apologies in advance for the delay. Thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with me :)

* * *

 

Wash didn’t know how long it had been. Days? A week? Maybe a month? It didn’t really matter. The days blended into an endless cycle of meals, training and sleep. Less of the latter and much, much more of the training. Wash’s body was exhausted, his muscles tired from constant use. The circles under his eyes were even darker than before but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t sleep for any longer than three or four hours. His body numb and his mind constantly repeating the myriad of scenes in his head of how Tucker might have died, of how Wash should have said something to him before.  
  
At some point, and Wash wouldn’t ever be able to say when or why, the cogs in his mind started turning. Slowly at first, but each turn brought Wash back from the void.  
  
People just didn’t _vanish_ without an explanation. They didn’t just pop out of existence without a trace.  
  
The suit, Simmons had said, was the Meta’s. Epsilon had confirmed this, explaining that he had formulated a plan that had the highest rate of success that he could calculate. Although injuries had been taken into account; the gunshot that Simmons had taken in his metal shoulder instead of Grif, the grenade explosion that would have deafened Donut had the pink soldier not already been a little hard of hearing and various near misses, cuts and scrapes and bruises, the A.I hadn’t accounted for Tucker, or anyone, being killed.  
  
Tucker hadn’t been killed though. Grif had expressly said the teal solider had vanished which had a different implication altogether. Vanished meant that Tucker could be _alive_. Wash didn’t know where this sudden surge of optimism came from — he usually thought the worst and overreacted because he was incredibly melodramatic — but it was exactly what he needed.  
  
Especially when Epsilon had come with Carolina to check on the soldier, the A.I admitted something that he hadn’t quite been ready to tell just yet before.  
  
“It was Gamma, Wash.”  
  
“Gamma? But the other A.I are gone.”  
  
“I don’t know how, but it was definitely him and...”  
  
“And?”  
  
“Sigma.”  
  
Wash had never been fond of that particular A.I, finding his ambition and curiosity more than a little unnerving.  
  
“Do you think it was intentional?”  
  
Epsilon shook his head. “I don’t think so.”  
  
“Do you think Tucker is alive?”  
  
Epsilon looked to Washington then, and although he was only a holographic projection of a suit of armour and a helmet, Wash could see the determination of the Director, standing tall with his arms behind him, his gaze steady and set firmly ahead of him.  
  
Epsilon was, after all, based on Doctor Leonard Church.  
  
“We’re going to find him, even if he’s not, and bring him home.”

*****

Life on board the Mother of Invention was about as boring as being back in the canyon, only he didn’t have his asshole friends with him. Which actually made things on board a little bit lonely.  
  
Sure, he’d sort of found a friend in C.T, oddly enough, and sure, York and North were kind enough to sit with him at meal times and occasionally help him out in the training rooms to practice his swish-swish-stab, but they all still looked at him like an outsider. Like someone they couldn’t trust.  
  
At first Tucker hadn’t wanted to pass along any information, fearing that it would rip apart the fabric of space and time or something, but recalling the pained look on Wash’s face whenever he mentioned a funny moment with Maine or a stupid thing that York had done, Tucker couldn’t help but feel like he should try to save them too. The freelancers were Wash’s friends after all, and even if Tucker didn’t mean a damn thing to the Washington in this timeline, he couldn’t himself to just let them die without trying to help them.  
  
His best intentions though, seemingly weren’t enough. It was infuriating; any tiny piece of information that he could give them was ignored.  
  
“We want _facts_ ,” the Director had said, refusing to even use Tucker’s name or rank, “So until you give us something concrete to work with, I suggest you keep out of business that isn’t yours.”  
  
So Tucker kept it to himself, sometimes telling C.T whatever it was that needed to be passed along to the team, but she had increasingly been absent from any of the missions that the freelancers had been sent out on. With C.T being around less and less, South’s anger rising to explosive new levels, York still in the infirmary and North acting more than just a little standoffish with everyone after the accident, Tucker felt like he had no one to rely on. No team to have his back or give him that extra shove when he was feeling down.  
  
Though, really, in this time, was there anyone he could rely on?  
  
He sat outside the infirmary, head in his hands as he rested his elbows on his thighs. Tucker had meant to go in to talk to York, but the usually comedic freelancer was having a particularly painful day, so Tucker had left him to rest.  
  
It meant another day alone on the big space ship with no one to talk to, his mind thinking of his old friends: his Red and Blue teammates, his Rebel and Republic comrades, and his heart yearning for more familiar territory.  
  
“Hey...” came a familiar voice that brought a shiver to his spine “Are...are you okay?”  
  
“I didn’t think you were so great with emotional stuff,” Tucker muttered, more to himself, but Washington had caught the last part.  
Although their one-on-one interactions had been brief, fleeting and awkward like a gangly teenager asking a boy or girl out for the first time, especially during the shower incident, Washington had noted that Tucker was an immense flirt. Choosing to purposefully forget that moment where Tucker had suggested that there might be something more between them in the future than just your usual camaraderie, Wash assumed that if Tucker was going through “emotional stuff” then it must have had something to do with one of Tucker’s flirtations going horribly wrong.  
  
“Emotional stuff?” A pause. “Did you try hitting on Carolina?”’  
  
“I like my balls where they are, thanks,” Tucker retorted, lifting his head from his hands.  
  
Washington couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him. “I take that as a no then. I know things are probably really difficult for you here, but I think you’re doing pretty well, considering everything that’s happened,” Wash flashed him a smile. “I guess time travel isn’t as great as everyone thinks it will be, huh?”  
  
Tucker gave a a small huff of laughter, though there was no humour in it. “Not really...”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Washington said.  
  
Tucker looked at Wash, warm brown eyes meeting grey and holding their gaze for the first time since Tucker had arrived on the Mother of Invention. Washington was looking at him, a slightly sad smile playing at his lips in a way that his Wash probably could never manage. Washington’s head was titled to the side a little as he stood there, quietly observing.  
  
Everything about Washington was different: the way his hair sat spiked up slightly at the front, to his casual stance, to his expression and grey eyes that were looking at him with sympathy, that weren’t as hardened as the ones that Tucker often found himself lost in.  
  
Somehow, Tucker managed to find his voice, “Thanks.”  
  
Washington gave Tucker another small smile before heading off down the hall.  
  
Everything about Washington was different. So why did Tucker feel his heart race at the gentle expression, the ease at which Washington had managed to ask him how he was? He shouldn’t feel this way. Washington was a stranger, absolutely nothing like the Wash he knew well and loved; from the dry, sarcastic wit to the stern commanding officer to the surprisingly gentle lover he was.  
  
“Fuck,” Tucker sighed to himself, his heart and mind at war.  
  



	11. Welcome to Project Freelancer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was out sooner than expected! 
> 
> And things happen!

* * *

 

After weeks of inactivity, things suddenly became busy on the Mother of Invention. Although Tucker was typically kept out of the loop (a fact that he was constantly pissed off about), it didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was going on.  
  
Though Tucker guessed it helped that he recently found himself in the hangar assisting 479er with whatever it was she needed. It was easy to notice when things were starting to pick up. Considering he wasn’t trained for anything on a spaceship, the only thing he was really good for was labour. Although he didn’t usually make a habit of it, he _could_ take orders and do what was asked. It sure as hell beat sitting there on his own with nothing but his thoughts to occupy him. The snarky comments and witty banter with the hot-headed pilot made him _almost_ feel at home.  
  
The freelancers had been called into a briefing earlier that day, which meant something was about to do gown. Tucker tried to remember if Wash had mentioned anything important, anything that might even give him a hint at to where he was or what was going to happen.  
  
“You know, I can’t help but notice we’re prepping the smaller Pelicans,” Tucker stated, hoping that 479er might give him a little bit of a hint at what the plan was.  
  
479er turned to shout at one of the less helpful technicians who was fumbling with ammunition before facing Tucker.  
  
“We’re going to be rigged for fast running.”  
  
“So...like stealth?”  
  
“Not necessarily,” she said. “We need to get in and out. Maneuverability and speed is what’s important.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Don’t think I can’t see what you’re trying to do. Get back to work.”  
  
Tucker rolled his eyes, though the pilot couldn’t see behind the visor of his helmet and straightened. He gave a mock salute before heading back into the Pelican to help remove the armaments and equipment that he’d been told wouldn’t be needed. Tucker was (for once) focusing so intently on his work that the soft foot-falls behind him went unnoticed until a soft, gentile voice spoke.  
  
“It’s Lavernius, isn’t it?”  
  
Tucker jumped, startled at the voice and turned quickly, fully intending on letting whoever it was that snuck up on him have a piece of his mind. His incredibly witty retort of “Fuck you!” was lost when he realised just who it was. The soft lilt and gentle tone should have been an instant give away: Tucker had never heard anyone else speak like that, ever. Despite the sheer amount of shit that the Reds and Blues went through because of Project Freelancer, truthfully, Tucker didn’t know all that much about the Director. The most Tucker knew was that the guy was a grade A asshole whom ruined almost anyone’s life he came into contact with and that Church and Carolina wanted to exact revenge upon him.  
  
Oh, and that Church was based off of him. Or something.  
  
Tucker knew even less about the enigmatic Councilor and that fact alone made the soldier rather cautious around the soft-spoken man.  
  
“Uh, yeah. What’s up, dude?”  
  
If the lack of title bothered him, the Councilor didn’t show it. Instead, he gave Tucker a polite smile as he placed his hands behind his back.  
  
“The Director and I would like to have a chat with you,” he said.  
  
Instantly, Tucker grew suspicious. They hadn’t given two shits about what he had to say this past however-long he’d been on the ship. Why would they suddenly care about what he might know?  
  
“Why?” he asked, trying to come across as stupid or surprised, rather than calculating. “I mean, it’s not like I’m part of the Project or anything so...”  
  
“We’ve been working on some experiments and we require your,” Tucker didn’t miss the slight grimace on the Councilor’s face, “expert opinion.”  
  
_Yeah, right. Expert._ Tucker thought.  
  
As if that didn’t sound ominous at all.  
  
Despite the way his stomach sank as he followed after the Councilor, Tucker tried to ignore the little voice in his head that was saying this definitely wasn’t going to end well. In fact, it was probably going to go about as well as his first field mission as Captain went.  
  
“Great,” Tucker muttered under his breath. “Someone’s not gonna come back...”  
  
“My apologies, I didn’t quite catch that?”  
  
“Uh, I said, ‘Great! Maybe you’ve got a way to get me back?’. I mean, that’s a thing you guys can figure out, right?”  
  
The Councilor gave another smile.  
  
“We’re working on it.”

*****

  
Tucker hadn’t been in the debriefing room since his first day on the Mother of Invention, not that Tucker was complaining. Although he was bored brainless doing menial labour, it sure as hell beat being sent out into space to do the crazy shit that the Freelancers did. As the door to the debriefing room slid open, Tucker could swear that he glimpsed a blue glow that he knew as well as the back of his hand. The bubble of...excitement? Happiness? Whatever it was came as a surprise. By the time Tucker had looked to where the glow had been, there was nothing there but the black table with the blue grid lines and the ever-present leader board.  
  
“As requested, Director, Lavernius Tucker.”  
  
“Thank you Councilor,” the Director said in his drawling accent. “It seems that you’re settling in well on board.”  
  
“Uh...I guess? Is that seriously what you wanted to talk to me for?”  
  
“No, it’s not.” The Director straightened, as though he were about to deliver some kind of news that was going to be difficult to take. “You’ve been on board for just over a month now, and whilst we are still researching what it is that caused you to be brought here, we haven’t made any concrete breakthroughs. We were hoping that you might have some insight on what could have made it possible for you to travel between parallel universes.”  
  
It was something that Tucker had been thinking about. In all the movies, people invented a machine that could break the speed of light or whatever barrier it was or there would be some kind of magical artifact that made teleportation possible. However this wasn’t the movies so there needed to be science and other smart technological shit that needed to happen. Definitely not for the first time, Tucker found himself wishing that Simmons was here. At least the nerdy maroon soldier would have had some sort of idea about the tech stuff.  
  
“Uh...” Tucker found himself saying when he realised that the Director and Councilor were waiting for him to speak. “Well...you guys were the ones that brought me here. I think.”  
  
“How do you mean?” The Councilor asked.  
  
“We didn’t — don’t — have anything back where I’m from that can make this happen. All I had was my s...”  
  
He had the Meta’s armour. Some of the most technologically advanced armour that came out of Project Freelancer and an AI that had figured out the best way to run it just as a fragment.  
  
“Your what?” The Director pressed.  
  
“Suit. Power armour. So maybe, somehow, there was some kind of, I dunno...connection that you guys made with my side and I just got, pulled across. Like a portal or something.”  
  
“A connection,” The Councilor mused, “That is remarkably interesting.”  
  
Now that he had said it out loud, Tucker felt that he was on the mark. The suit connected their timelines but... _how_ had it worked? How had it happened?  
  
Goddamn, he really wished Simmons or Church were here.  
  
“But that’s all I’ve theorised for now,” Tucker said, throwing around words that Simmons would use. “But, uh, I’m forming a, uh...what’s the word...hypothesis! I’m forming a hypothesis about how it happened.”  
  
“If you don’t mind, we would appreciate it if you could keep us abreast of any hypothesis you come up with.”  
  
“We can have Agent Wyoming implement the experiments accordingly,” the Director added.  
  
“There’s one other thing,” The Councilor said, taking out a clip board and looking over a sheet of paper. “After careful consideration, we would like you to take on an operative name. You won’t be on the roster, and you will continue in your non-combatant capacity.”  
  
“So why even bother?”  
  
“Because,” the Director said, “We can’t have Lavernius Tucker in the database here if he’s supposed to be positioned...where was it?”  
  
“Blood Gulch,” the Councilor added.  
  
Not for the first time, Tucker wished that he knew more about the impassive green-eyed man standing before him. Tucker didn’t think the excuse they were feeding him was a very good one; wouldn’t it just be as easy to not even mention he was on the ship? Surely they could keep one guy out of the paperwork; after all, they were already being shady with their AI experiments, what was one more digression? Still, Tucker shrugged it off hoping that maybe getting a cool codename would make things easier. Maybe they’d listen to him when he said that something was a bad idea. Most importantly though, Tucker thought that maybe it would help him out when Wash was supposed to get Epsilon.  
  
“Okay then. Where do I sign?”  
  
“You don’t need to sign anything, Agent Indiana.”  
  
“Welcome to Project Freelancer,” the Director said.  
  
Although the Director had said welcome, Tucker could tell that the words were empty.  


	12. What You Had To

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this took a horrendously long time...

* * *

 

By the time Tucker left the Councilor and the Director, the hangar was empty and he couldn’t help but feel like that whole meeting, the whole Agent Indiana thing, was just a way to keep Tucker under wraps and out of the way until they could figure out how to deal with him.  
  
Fuck that.  
  
As he turned to leave the Pelican bay, violet armour caught his attention. Despite her reputation of being a gruff and angry individual, South Dakota gave Tucker what could only be described as a bemused smirk as she offered him a small pewter flask. In the short time he had been here on the Mother of Invention, Tucker had found himself an unlikely friend. Women typically hated him, but perhaps the fact that he knew he couldn’t hit on South Dakota without a swift kick to the groin had helped him reign in his behaviour.  
  
“The Dream Team left you behind too, eh Indi?”  
  
“Wha?”  
  
She shook the flask, wordlessly insisting Tucker take a swig. “I was given the very important task of looking after our new rookie. Apparently they don’t have anything better for me to do.”  
  
“But that seriously happened like five minutes ago?”  
  
Tucker took the flask and uncapped it, taking a sniff of the contents to make sure he wasn’t about to take a swig of tequila, or straight up moonshine. There had been an incident with Sister back in Blood Gulch and since then Tucker couldn’t stomach the stuff.  
  
South shrugged. “They sent out a memo.”  
  
Tucker didn’t even know what to say to that, so he lifted the flask to his lips and took a long swig. He winced, the alcohol burning slightly as swallowed. It wasn’t the smoothest thing he’d ever drank, but the sim trooper had certainly tasted much worse before.  
  
“How the fuck do you even get booze on a ship like this?”  
  
The grin that South Dakota gave was devilish.  
  
“Someone gives a certain pilot the best ride of her life.”  
  
“Yeah?” Tucker asked, genuinely surprised.  
  
“E-yup,” South replied, the devilish grin still upon her lips as she took the flask back.  
  
The pair lapsed into a comfortable silence as they sat around the hangar. With South on babysitting duty and Tucker with nowhere better to be, they passed the time in one another’s company, watching the other crew members come and go. They shared stories and booze and the time ticked by.  
  
Despite wanting to ask if South knew anything about the mission that the other freelancers had been sent out on, Tucker kept his thoughts to himself. Tucker might not have been the brightest star in the sky, or a few fragments short of a full AI, but he knew when he was being watched. Whatever slip up South Dakota was waiting for him to make, she would be waiting for a long, long time.  
  
In the back of his mind, Tucker couldn’t help but wonder who didn’t get screwed over by the Councilor and the Director and their questionable plans?  
  
He was starting to realise that the answer was no one.

  
*****

  
Tucker never used to be a light sleeper, able to sleep through almost anything until noon, but certain events in his life had conditioned him to react to noise that was out of the ordinary. Tucker had hoped that spending the majority of the day trading stories and alcohol with Agent South Dakota would make sleep a simple affair that evening. Sadly, he had no such luck.  
  
Ever since arriving on the Mother of Invention, Tucker hadn’t managed a proper night’s rest. Pelicans coming and going weren’t in his learned list of ‘night noises that are normal’ and so he found himself being roused every time one came int for landing. At first, he would lay there, blinking up at the ceiling after been woken up, unable to relax until the ship was mostly silent once more. Over the past weeks, Tucker had taken to listening to his surroundings for a moment or two to determine that the sounds were harmless before rolling over and going back to sleep.  
  
Tonight was different. Tonight he knew that the ‘Dream Team’ had been sent out on a mission. Every swoosh of a door closing, every slightly heavy footfall on the ground had Tucker jolting awake, straining his ears to pick out any out of the ordinary sound.  
  
Tonight Tucker wasn’t sure if they’d make it back alive.  
  
His ears pricked at the sound of approaching footsteps, the thud that they made as they hit the floor slow, almost as though they were trying to delay the inevitable. Tucker had sprung from his bed in seconds, dashing across the floor to his door to open it even before whomever it was approaching had knocked.  
  
A look of surprise flittered across York’s face, his closed fist raised and poised to tap on the door that was no longer there.  
  
“What happened?” Tucker asked, trying his damnedest to keep the desperation from his voice. His heart was pounding, the sound of the beating loud in his ears.  
  
The gaze of York’s good eye flickered to the floor briefly. “Things didn’t go exactly to plan.”  
  
The soldier from Blood Gulch couldn’t help the sharp inhale as a hundred different scenarios played in his head in a second. He should have just kept his mouth shut. He should have just stayed in his room until the Mother of Invention docked somewhere so he could walk off the ship and start a new life somewhere. At least that way York wouldn’t be here, knocking on his bedroom door, delivering the news that Wash was injured or dead.  
  
Tucker swallowed past the lump in his throat and drew a slow, long breath despite how his chest felt like it tightened with every passing moment. Tucker squared his shoulders, physically and mentally preparing himself for the bad news.  
  
York noticed the subtle shift in Tucker’s demeanor and looked at the man, his hands suddenly coming up in front of him, palms open trying to calm him down.  
  
“No, no. It’s not...it’s...Wash is fine, Tucker.”  
  
The relief that swept through him must have been obvious: York gave him the slightest smile before bringing his hand up to the back of his neck.  
  
“But...”  
  
“Who’s hurt?”  
  
York sighed, the eye that wasn’t covered with a piece of gauze closing as a pained expression flittered across his face.  
  
“It’s Maine.”  
  
York didn’t need to elaborate. Tucker was well aware of the friendship between Maine and Wash, hell, he’d even be willing to bet that they were closer than friends. He knew first hand what it was like to feel helpless when someone you cared about — friend, teammate or lover — was injured, or worse.  
  
“Is anyone with him?” Tucker asked.  
  
York shook his head. “Wash refuses to see us.”  
  
Tucker was torn between wanting to run right to Wash or asking York what he expected Tucker to do. His hesitation must have shown on his face because York sighed, giving the sim trooper a sad sort of smile.  
  
“ You’re teammates, right? I know...I know it’s not the same; this Wash and yours, they’re different. But...I was hoping that maybe you might care enough about this one to talk to him?”  
  
There were hundreds of reasons why Tucker cared enough to talk to Washington and a hundred more why he shouldn’t.  
  
“What makes you think that Washington would talk to me? He refused to talk to you guys and you’re all friends. I’m just some dude.”  
  
York gave a half shrug. “What have you got to lose?”  
  
Tucker couldn’t put it into words that York might understand. The closer he got to Washington, the further he grew from Wash. Tucker was living through a time that Wash had buried deep in his mind, tossed it in a box and threw away the key. Tucker was learning new things about Wash every day that he hadn’t wanted his new friends to know, things that Wash felt were better left in the past.  
  
He felt it was a betrayal of Wash’s trust and the feeling grew every time Tucker noticed just how different the two were.  
  
Instead of dwelling on those painful points or voicing any of his thoughts, Tucker shrugged, stepping out of his room.  
  
“Nothing, I guess.”  


  
Washington sat in the waiting room, his hands clenched tightly as he stared at the ground, a glare in his eyes and his lips pressed into a tight line. His back was hunched and every so often he would glance towards the door to the medical bay.  
  
It was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill operation. Infiltrate the location, obtain the artefact and haul ass out of there.  
  
No-one had expected things to go to shit so horribly. No-one had expected the insurrectionists to be so heavily armed. No-one expected Tex showing up as backup (thank God she did.) Most of all, no-one expected Maine to be injured, close to death, blood lazily oozing from multiple gunshots to his throat.  
  
The worst part was, Washington hadn’t been any the wiser until Carolina had strode out of the pelican, crimson splashed over her cyan armour, a frightening contrast. Medical staff rushed into the aircraft as Carolina swore loudly. Washington could still smell the scent of drying blood that he’d caught in the air when the team leader gave him the news.  
  
Washington had made his way straight for the medical bay and refused to leave. Concerned teammates and friends had tried to console him, but Washington didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want their words of pity nor did he want their hands upon his shoulder giving a gentle squeeze. The sound of approaching footsteps had Washington looking up with a steely gaze, an expletive upon the tip of his tongue. The words faltered when the last person he’d expected to show up stopped before him.  
  
“Tucker?”  
  
“Agent Indiana, actually,” Tucker said conversationally. He never could just get right down to the heartfelt stuff straight away.  
  
“What?”  
  
Tucker was plenty familiar with the stunned intonation of the word. “I know, right?”  
  
“But... why? _How_?”  
  
“I have no fuckin’ clue, dude,” Tucker said, taking a seat beside Washington. “You’ll need to ask Councilor CreepyVoice and Director Douchebag about that.”  
  
A frown found its way onto Washington’s face. “I don’t think those are appropriate titles for your superiors.”  
  
“Maybe not, but who gives a shit? They’re not here and I doubt the walls are gonna be offended.”  
  
Washington said nothing and an awkward silence fell between them.  
  
“He’s gonna be okay, you know.”  
  
Washington quirked an eyebrow. “How do you know?”  
  
“Duh, I’m from the future, remember? I didn’t know the guy personally but I heard stories,” Tucker furrowed his brow, wondering just how much he should give away. “From what one of my friends said, you guys were even working together for a while after the Project.”  
  
“Were?”  
  
“Uh...” Shit. “Well, Blue Team sort of adopted you and Maine...”  
  
Washington didn’t need to ask what Tucker meant.  
  
“I see.”  
  
“But he’s fine _now_ and that’s what matters, right?”  
  
Washington set his gaze upon the doors to the medical room that Maine was currently being operated on.  
  
“Who kills him in the future?”  
  
“I’m _trying_ to prevent that, you know?”  
  
“Who, Tucker?”  
  
Tucker swallowed.  
  
“It was...a, uh, team effort.”  
  
“Was I there?”  
  
Tucker nodded.  
  
“Which side was I on?”  
  
Tucker sighed. “You...you did what you had to.”


	13. What Are The Odds?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker briefly meets Delta.
> 
> Wash and Epsilon try to figure something out.
> 
> What are the odds?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly - I am eternally sorry about how long this chapter took to get out and although its short, I'm finally happy with how it flows.
> 
> Secondly - thanks so much to everyone who has dropped kind notes and comments, it's so incredibly encouraging and I'm so happy that you're enjoying this fic even though updates are few and far between. 
> 
> I hope you find that this chapter was worth the wait!

* * *

 How do you begin to look for someone when there is absolutely no trace of where to start?  
  
It was a question that had plagued Wash for weeks. He wracked his brain day and night, trying to pinpoint somewhere to begin his search for the teammate he refused to believe was dead. However, Wash couldn’t come up with anything feasible. Everything ended with the same question being asked: where did they even begin? Epsilon couldn’t answer that question either and he had been by Tucker’s side when he had vanished into thin air.  
  
If a super intelligent fraction (no matter how questionable that fact might be) of an artificial intelligence couldn’t figure out where to start the search, how could Wash? Sometimes Epsilon would talk to the other fragments to try and come up with ideas or solutions. Occasionally, Wash would discuss things with them as well. It was somewhat nostalgic, hearing the familiar voices that reminded him of days long since passed. Although each fragment that he could speak to now were _technically_ still Epsilon, Wash found that each projection of the other fragments had still retained their individualities, their particular ways of processing and explaining information. Epsilon’s projection of Theta was still very much child-like and hopeful, often optimistic despite the dire circumstances and always a source of comfort. Omega was still angry, ready to pounce at any given moment. Gamma seemed less deceitful, though Wash couldn’t tell if that was because Gamma naturally wasn’t included to be deceitful or because of the partnership of Gamma and Wyoming together caused him to be that way. He didn’t see much of Eta and Iota, and Sigma was never, ever projected. Although Wash had known most of them from his days in Project Freelancer, he felt most comfortable talking with Delta. Delta was familiar and his direct way of speaking was oddly comforting.  
  
“Delta?” Wash called.  
  
The unmistakable green of York’s old friend flickered into view before him.  
  
“Hello, Agent Washington. It is good to see you.”  
  
Wash couldn’t help the soft smile that played across his lips.  
  
“It’s good to see you too, Delta.”  
  
“How may I be of assistance?”  
  
“I was wondering about Tucker...”  
  
“Of course,” Delta said with a slight nod of his head.  
  
Individually, the AI fragments had different opinions on Wash and Tucker. The ones seemingly most sympathetic to the Red’s and Blue’s situation were easily Epsilon and Delta and Wash often found himself discussing possibilities and probabilities with them more frequently than the rest.  
  
“Doctor Grey said something to me the other day that I’d like you to spend some time thinking about. If that’s all right.”  
  
“Please continue, Agent Washington. I am listening.”  
  
“Doctor Grey had said that she once did a course on quantum mechanics, and in that it was suggested that at any given moment there are countless parallel universes.”  
  
“I believe you’re talking about the multiverse theory.”  
  
Wash nodded. “She mentioned that she had overheard myself and Carolina talking about Wyoming’s temporal distortion unit and had a crazy idea.”  
  
“What is this ‘crazy idea’, Agent Washington?”  
  
Wash sighed. It was difficult to not get his hopes up and it was why he had wanted to talk to Delta. He had a certain way with dashing his hopes without crushing him completely with mockery. Despite his directness, Delta did have _some_ tact, and would often let Wash down gently. Though, Wash had a hunch that Delta’s tact came more from Epsilon himself.  
  
“If the multiverse theory isn’t completely refuted...if there is a chance of it being real... what are the chances of the temporal distortion unit malfunctioning and somehow teleporting him across universes instead of through time?”  
  
Delta tilted his head as he considered what Wash was suggesting.  
  
“Might I have some time to think about this, Agent Washington?”  
  
“Of course, Delta. Thank you.”  
  
The little hologram went to flicker out, but it hesitated for a moment.  
  
“Agent Washington?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
Delta looked up at Washington carefully. “I hope that we are able to find Tucker.”  
  
Wash gave the fragment a sad smile. “Me too, Delta. Me too.”

  
  
*****

  
  
The small green hologram hovering at York’s shoulder made Tucker do a double take.  
  
The colour wasn’t at all familiar to him, but the projection, small enough to easily stand in the palm of his hand and wearing that recognisable style of armour, was.  
  
It was Church.  
  
Epsilon. Whatever.  
  
Or, at the very least, some weird variation of him. Fragment. That was the word. A fragment. A fragment of his best friend in a completely different time and universe.  
  
Fan-fucking-tastic. Tucker wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to face any of the A.I. He wasn’t ready to face Epsilon or the Alpha or whatever it was. He never would be ready. He was just one sim trooper who found himself a million miles from home with no clue, no backup and quickly dwindling hope.  
  
Tucker had been prepared to slink down the hall silently, praying to not be noticed by York, but the freelancer had spotted him, raising an arm in greeting.  
  
“Hey, Indi!  
  
Tucker flinched at the shout, turning around and waving in return as York approached him.  
  
“H-hey, York. How’s it going?”  
  
“Much better, actually.”  
  
Tucker’s gaze flittered to the green hologram at York’s shoulder. “Yeah, you were in the infirmary for a few days...”  
  
York nodded. “Just standard procedure for getting one of these guys. Say hello to my new A.I, Delta. Delta, this is Agent Indiana.”  
  
York seemed so pleased to be able to introduce the computer program that Tucker couldn’t help but be friendly.  
  
“Sup, little dude?”  
  
“‘Sup?’,” Delta repeated, “I am confused by the question.”  
  
York chuckled. “It’s a casual way of saying hello, Delta.”  
  
“Oh, I see. Hello, Agent Indiana. I feel that I should say that it is nice to meet you.”  
  
Tucker laughed despite his conflicting feelings toward the green A.I. “Well, you don’t _have_ to, but it’s a nice thing to say anyway. It’s nice to meet you too, little dude.”  
  
Delta nodded before the holograph flashed out of sight.  
  
“Can’t see him now, but he’s still around,” York said for Tucker’s benefit.  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
There was a pause before York tilted his head upwards slightly in understanding.  
  
“That’s right. Hey, did you ever meet Delta in the future?”  
  
Tucker was glad his helmet masked the grimace on his face. “I was, uh, stationed somewhere else at the time.”  
  
“Oh, that’s too bad. Well, I’m gonna introduce D to the others. I’ll see you around, Indi?”  
  
“Yeah, I’ll catch you later, York.”  
  
Tucker watched York round the corner and heaved a sigh when the freelancer was out of sight.  
  
One fragment — that he knew of — down. Tucker paused in his thinking. Was Delta the first? How many others were there if he wasn’t? Tucker was well aware that C.T was dealing with her own shit right now, but he had questions for her that he needed answered, if she could. Right now, C.T was all Tucker had.

  
  
*****

  
  
Although those that didn’t know him too well still gave him barely-masked looks of pity whenever he was with Caboose or the Reds, Wash refused to let it get the better of him. He needed to accept that although it didn’t feel or seem like it, right now, he was doing the best that he could. If Delta came back saying that travelling between universes was just not possible, then he would come up with something else. He had never given up on Tucker before and he sure as hell wasn’t about to now. Even though Caboose didn’t really understand, and although Tucker was a dirty Blue, the rest of the team weren’t about to give up on him either.  
Everyone was helping out in their own way: Sarge had suggested that maybe they try building their own time machine - after all, Project Freelancer had one and Church had been part of it, so surely he’d have some knowledge on how time travel worked. Lopez had immediately walked off with a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, but Wash had noticed him giving random bits of machinery and parts to Simmons. Simmons was working on the science of it and Grif had, surprisingly, offered himself up as a test subject. Doc was Grif’s comms officer on the handful of test runs for the time machine. Donut had gallantly taken up the role of being anchor during the test runs too; they refused to let Grif go into the tests without some kind of link to the current time line and Donut was the only one strong enough to haul Grif back through whatever portal opened.  
  
It took two agonising weeks for Delta to seek Wash out. Two weeks of Wash having to remind himself that there was an extremely good chance that Delta would give him news that he didn’t want to hear. Two weeks of stamping down that flicker of hope whenever Epsilon would appear. Two weeks of trying to ignore that damn whisper in the back of his mind that Delta was taking so long because he was trying to calculate every single possibility, trying to make his calculations with a zero margin of error.  
  
Wash was in the middle of a training session with the Lieutenants when he saw it, the tell-tale glimmer of green at Carolina’s shoulder as it flickered out of sight. Before he could even think to tell the soldiers they were dismissed, Wash was running over to the tent that Carolina was sitting at the front of.  
  
“Delta?” Wash asked, briefly wondering why he was breathless. “Epsilon?”  
  
Carolina politely waited for Epsilon to appear. Epsilon hadn’t told her what he wanted; only that he needed to see Washington as soon as possible. She hadn’t been expecting him to find her instantly, but judging from her friend’s reaction, the news was something he’d been waiting on.  
  
“Hey Wash...”  
  
Wash took a breath to gather his courage and squared his shoulders. Whatever blow Epsilon was going to give to him, he could — would — handle it.  
  
“What are the results?”  
  
“It took us a while to figure it out. We...  _I_ wanted to make sure that there would be no errors this time...”  
  
“And?”  
  
“The odds of it happening are insane...”  
  
Behind his helmet, Wash bit his lip, hard to keep himself present and he could see Carolina’s fingers curl into a tight fist as they rested on top of her knees.  
  
“But it _can_. And I don’t know about you but...” Epsilon continued.  
  
“I like those odds.”


End file.
